Good progress this week, especially on the writing front. I’ve had significantly more energy, too, probably due to some combination of the arrival of fall, of switching to new allergy meds, of the fact that J. and I have been playing tennis, and of abstaining from alcohol since early August.
I also started bullet journaling this month. It’s been a great tweak to my usually inconsistent list-making. What fascinates me most about bullet journaling by far, though, is all the jargon around it. Sections aren’t sections, they’re “Modules”. Taking notes is “Rapid Logging”. Reviewing them is “Migration”. It’s the language of software, and I wonder if part of the reason it sticks (for me) is because the language is both new enough to be unusual but old enough to be familiar.
House updates:
- The drain got scoped. The procedure’s kind of like an endoscopy for the house’s GI tract. They snake a camera into the sewer line, turn on all the faucets, watch to see how the water flows. Good news: our sewer line is in great shape; we won’t have to dig it up and replace it. We’d set aside part of the budget for this just in case, and now that money can go somewhere else (hopefully back in my pocket).
- Another big step: we decided on kitchen and bathroom lighting. This might be the first moment so far during renovation where I really felt in over my head. I was up until three in the morning one night trying to figure out how to lay out the recessed kitchen lights when I realized: there are people whose sole job it is to do exactly this one specific thing. A good night’s rest later I figured it out, but it came with a big dose of humility, and consumed a day’s worth of writing time.
Speaking of writing:
- I hit my 1500-word-per-day goal twice this week, and the other days (above mentioned excepted) I averaged around a thousand. I’m getting close to the halfway point.
- I’ve had the energy to write in the evenings too, which I haven’t had for a while. Plus, J. started a new nursing job recently, working three 7am–7pm day shifts a week, so on workday-eves she’ll be in bed by ten, leaving me with a couple hours of solitary writing time.
- I face a big test next week when we go to Austin for a long weekend to visit J.’s brother (and meet her new niece!). I’m hoping to find pockets of manuscript time early in the morning and right before bed, so as to maintain my current pace.
I’ll end with my writing soundtrack for the week: Tycho’s sunrise DJ sets from Burning Man. He’s been doing them since 2015, though I only discovered them recently. Here’s the set from this year: https://soundcloud.com/tycho/waypoint-burning-man-sunrise-set-2018